We’ve already covered this phenomenon we perceive to be happening somewhere else, while the middle-class tendency to lurk around the life of the less fortunate so as to catch a glimpse of how the “other side” lives hasn’t bypassed curious voyeuristic Croatian tourists and has already been dubbed as “slum tourism” in tourist lingo. This could be a source of flattery and pride for some people as a way of nurturing social awareness. Thus last summer a few tourist guides were left bewildered as various questions popped up on standard routes showing the city’s best assets. Questions such as “Haven’t you got homeless persons on the streets, where are your poor?” Had those tourists dug deeper and bothered to look around more closely, they would’ve seen a continuous onslaught of people patrolling the dumpsters in hopes of digging up ‘treasures’, even at renowned Zagreb tourist spots such as Zrinjevac or the most beautiful secession building in town – the Croatian National Archive. These are our poor, but where do they live, the tourists ask?

Thanks to the socialist practice of allocating apartments and tenants’ rights, the poor are all around us, from the city center onwards, although spatial stratification still exists.

Let’s take the three largest cities in Croatia as an example – Zagreb, Split and Rijeka. All three cities have ties to tourism: Rijeka is seen as a gateway, Zagreb a place where group tours are organized daily, while Split has recently morphed from a mere transitory into a real tourist destination. It’s not likely any tourist will see the flip side of those cities, i.e. the worst part of each respective city. So why don’t we take a tour to see what lurks beneath the surface.

While groups of tourists stroll through the center of Zagreb in the summer, in the east part of town, at Kozara Bok and Kozara one isn’t likely to run into other people. Perhaps only a stray child splashing around in an inflatable swimming pool in front yards of rundown houses while a strong stench permeates the settlement. The septic tanks tend to “come alive” dependent on the weather. The tenants will tell you that sewage infrastructure is what’s needed most. They already have electricity, they got water a few years ago, the roads are paved, and all that’s lacking is wastewater infrastructure. And the possibility of legalizing their houses – adds a man we met in front of an unfinished one-storey house. As soon as he saw us, he asked us what we’re doing here and why we’re taking pictures. You don’t go unnoticed here. Unfamiliar faces are rare in the settlement, there are no accidental passers-by; one comes here intentionally – for example politicians during election time with their promises in an attempt to collect votes.

Emerging as various periphery settlements, on convenient or city plots, without valid infrastructure or public content, often without permits, the living standard improved somewhat in Kozara Putevi and Kozara Bok, while the bad reputation lingers. They’re rumored to be dangerous places although a good part of the settlements look like usual Croatian villages: semi-detached family houses with barely-finished facades. There’s neither anything special to see nor anything to be afraid of. At least not on first sight.

Zehra Novaković moved to Kozara puteve from the Zagreb neighborhood of Knežija eight years ago and says she’s content with her current neighborhood for the most part. She lives with her husband and children in a big new house and gets along fine with her neighbors, mostly immigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina. When asked what she considers a priority in view of improvements, in addition to the septic tank stench she complains about, everything she mentions is tied to the conditions in which she’s forced to raise her two children. She considers the only school in the vicinity, the ‘Dr. Vinko Žganac’ Elementary School, too small for the area deemed “Zagreb’s highest birth-rate region.” She’s also very worried about the drug dealers loitering about, even outside the school, she notes. That’s why they accompany their grade-school son to and from school every day, even though the school is only some 500 meters from their house. “I’m afraid he’ll succumb to the bad influences around him,” she explains and adds that the police aren’t really all that quick in dealing with the drug problems.

The Split periphery settlement Sirobuja encounters similar problems. Sirobuja started to emerge on the city’s east outskirts during the late sixties. Mostly small family houses were built practically overnight and landings subsequently began to sprout throughout the years as the children grew up and needed their own housing. For the most part, Jugoplastika workers set up house here, as did other factory workers whose factories have long since bitten the dust. They just arbitrarily decided to build on the then nationalized land, where no zoning plan anticipated individual building. As it was far from the city and far from the eyes of the citizens and local authorities, nobody really cared enough to look into the matter. And thus Sirobuja expanded according to the ever-growing onslaught of newcomers.

Sirobuja isn’t known for its poverty, there’s a neighborhood in Split that carries that name, the Poor Neighborhood although it’s not especially known either for either poverty or drug problems, there are many other contenders in this particular area, although the Poor Neighborhood is in fact the result of unlicensed construction – it emerged as such and hasn’t changed to this day. Sirobuja is the largest Split unlicensed community where out of some six hundred buildings, the only ones legally built are the St. Leopold Mandić Church and the elementary school.A few family houses have been legalized in the meantime, but only through the law stating that all structures built until 1968 can be legalized. There are few such structures in Sirobuja. In much the same way the neighbors helped one another to stir concrete and build houses they also joined forces and funds to improve their living quarters. In a true socialist manner, through joint work activities and voluntary local taxes, they built roads, electric, plumbing and other installations, while wastewater infrastructure remains a pipe dream to this day. As does legalization. For approximately 3.500 residents, hopes for legalization, so “they have something to leave their children,” have started up even before the current disastrous Legalization Act. Sirobuja was the first community included in the legalization pilot project seven years ago, but the problem still hasn’t been resolved.

If there was a contest for the coolest “slum tourism” neighborhood, the winner would most probably be Rujevica, one of Rijeka’s neighborhoods. Situated on the north side of the Rijeka bypass motorway, only three kilometers from the city center, Rujevica offers a breathtaking view of the entire Kvarner Bay. And that’s about all it has to offer. With the Treaty of Rome signed in 1924, the city of Rijeka was annexed to Italy and Rujevica became the border zone where bunkers and other military structures were built. The first inhabitants arrived after the end of the Second World War, trying to escape an even worse state of poverty that reigned in other parts of Yugoslavia, and precisely those military bunkers were utilized as their living accommodations. In the following decades, they have expanded them and turned them into very modest places of living. Today, there are about a hundred of them still serving as houses for about six hundred people. There is no tarmac, municipal infrastructure, it is impossible for the ambulance to reach some of the houses because the roads and paths that lead to them make it virtually inaccessible, the crime rate is high, and of course, all this has been illegally constructed. Instead of dealing with the situation once and for all, it looks like the fate of Rujevica might be sealed by the only advantage it has – its favorable position. The city authorities have decided that this is a great location for a new “secondary city center”, i.e. commercial-business-financial center of the city. Shops, business properties, banks and housing complexes would be built here. However, in order to do that the homes of former, predominantly Roma inhabitants would have to be removed. “The southern portion is characterized by the illegal housing construction used mostly by the Roma population. Although numerous, these accommodations cannot be left in the given area under any circumstances.” This is stated in the architectural-zoning competition for Rujevica published last year. Although the competition suggests that the inhabitants of Rujevica should be relocated to the new apartments that will be built here, there have been various possible solutions that have unsettled the population. Even relocation to Vrbovsko has been mentioned; a suggestion harshly condemned by the Primorsko-Goranska County “Roma Unity” Organization, that defined it as a mirror of the negative mentality and prejudices towards the Roma people as persona non grata in Croatia.

Prejudice and fear in view of the city outskirts are quite common. Ignorance can often be found at the root of such irrational consternation. In order to dissipate ignorance, and not just to experience the thrill of “slum tourism” one should set out towards settlements such as Rujevica and Kozara bok if for no other reason than to get our facts straight before blithely passing judgment on such social and spatial outposts.

Thanks to the Paris architecture office Christian Pottgiesser architectures possibles, the country bourgeois and 18th century spirit have been restored. The structure at hand is an exceptionally elegant and unobtrusive extension of an old orangery (a representative building located near the orchard) perched atop the hillside beneath the Seine, just a half-hour drive from the capital. The estate itself encompasses 5000 square feet, while the original set-up in its entirety resembles a clearing in a forest.

The entire complex, built for a family of six, consists of a residential area, a reception, an office and service spaces. In order to keep in line with the irregular natural topography, the architects decided to extend the residence all the way up towards the parcel’s northwest boundaries which ultimately resulted in an L-shaped general plan, hence the house’s name Maison L. As the local building code allows flat roofs, five three-storied toweresque volumes were implemented, stamping through the garden roof. However, the ground floor had to be dug 2 meters into the ground as it wasn’t allowed to build over a height of seven meters. Consequently every tower is a separate residence for each family member, while still remaining connected at the ground level.

The glazing around each tower provides natural lighting and an intriguing succession of perspectives between interior and exterior, above and below. A dressing room and storage spaces are located at the ground level of each private tower, a bathroom is on the mezzanine floor, while bedrooms are on the second floor. The slightly bigger tower for the parents has a rooftop garden from where one has a clear view to “La Défense”, the modern Paris’ business district with its skyscrapers.

About 2,500 police officers deployed to evict inhabitants of one of the capital city’s last squats marked the beginning of the Berlin underground scene. The building in the former East Berlin district of Friedrichshain became a squatting place twenty years ago, when a mass influx of inhabitants came here following the fall of the Berlin Wall thus making it Europe’s main squatting place. But this “open” city image where squatters from all over the world poured in has long since become an empty symbol and just a squatter here or there has remained while others have been either evicted or forced to sign a lease making them legal residents. This most recent eviction of squatters provoked riots which soon escalated into real street warfare between the police and squatters where twenty people were arrested while a several policemen were injured.

Should the legendary Tacheles, the renowned Berlin squat building, be evicted as has been announced for the past two years, it’s anyone’s guess what’s next in line. This one-time department store has been changing its utilization purpose since it was built in the early 20th century in the Jewish neighborhood Scheunenviertel. It even served as a Nazi prison at one point and was bombed during the Second World War only to be scheduled for demolition in April 1990 after standing empty for years on end. However, two months prior to the scheduled demolition artists moved in and organized public discussions and lobbied with the city authorities to prevent demolition. When an expert analysis showed that the building was in good shape it was proclaimed a protected monument and ceded to the artists. Today artists no longer live in Tacheles. Now there’s a total of 9000 square meters of exhibition space, around 30 artists’ ateliers, the Zapata Club, workshop spaces, performance arts scene, cinema… Tacheles has become a cultural center, a touchstone for the city’s anti-gentrification movement and a must-see tourist stop, which some 400.000 people visit annually (there’s no entrance charge), but could now well be counting its last days.

Even though there’s been talk of evicting artists since late 2008, when the artists’ lease was up, nobody dared give the go-ahead as they knew that it would provoke massive protests. However, in the meantime the bank stepped in and it wants to settle its debts. Namely, the former owner of the building and its large surrounding lot, development entrepreneur Anno August Jagdfeld, wasn’t able to cover his seven-figure debts to the state bank, the HSH Nordbank any longer, thus the bank became the new owner of Tacheles. The former owner also had various plans for that location (residential developments…), but gave up on the idea after attempting to negotiate with the squatters and an agreement was reached where the squatters paid him a symbolic rent of one euro per annum. However, the bank isn’t so generously inclined toward the squatters. On the contrary, it intends to sell Tacheles and throw the artists out while asking them to cough up a hundred thousand euro worth of rent for the first year. The bank intends to auction off the whole real estate with a starting price of 35 million euro, as this is quite a valuable and large lot in an attractive location at the corner of Oranienburger and Friedrichstrasse. The bank’s spokesperson says they have some ten potential buyers and that they all intend to keep the building but not the artists in it. The city authorities, which allocated money for the programs that were held there also spoke on behalf of saving Tacheles, it being a “symbol of the city’s development for the part twenty years”, but for now it hasn’t made an impact on the bank’s attitude, as the bank itself is dealing with losses and is looking for a way to cut them. However, André Schmitz, the city “Minister of Culture”, warned the bank that Tacheles, as a protected cultural monument, must continue to preserve and maintain its cultural orientation.

Of course, the artists have no intention of giving up without a fight. They’re doing everything they can, from writing letters to Chancellor Angela Merkel to threatening a hunger strike and chaining themselves to the building.
The fight over Tacheles is a continuation of a Berlin debate over city management. The winners in the debate have always been various investors whose new projects meant the end of alternative locations. Will that be the case with Tacheles? We’ll find out soon enough as the place is all set to be sold to the highest bidder.

Activists in Hamburg thought up a creative way to count down the days until Christmas, more precisely by posting a huge Advent countdown calendar on the city’s streets. They selected 24 derelict buildings at various locations throughout the city and posted a large red number ranging from 1 to 24 along with tinsel and Christmas baubles on the front doors, counting down the days to Christmas and pointing out that these buildings stand vacant and are most probably waiting for new investors ready to tear them down.

The activists, dressed as Santa Claus, or Santa’s Little Helpers if you will, stayed anonymous, but they’re actually a group fighting to raise awareness of gentrification in Hamburg. Their Advent Action is a call to renovate those buildings as well as an initiative to find some useful solutions. Former industrial spaces, a 1930’s villa standing empty, a building owned by the city that’s been standing empty for the better part of ten years, a former hotel along with a restaurant in the St. Pauli district (whose transformation we featured here) are all among those 24 buildings. They’re mostly city spaces, some even under protection, but that still doesn’t mean that they can’t be torn down should the city institutions concur with new investors that it would be in their best interests to do so. It isn’t necessarily a matter of corruption in Hamburg, rather a matter of a flexible protection system. The city authorities dubbed the action “highly amusing” from their offices, but only while it was directed at the city-owned spaces, as they don’t agree that private owners should be called out, and in that case would naturally be against it.

The citizens’ initiative Komm in die Gänge, which translates as “get on with it”, launched their own website where they present the buildings while allowing users to register vacant and unused buildings in the city and surroundings. Croatian cities would also profit from such a public database registering unused city spaces. Platforma 9,81 did something similar with its project Invisible Zagreb — a Guide for Squatters, where they listed unused, mostly industrial spaces in Zagreb, but their map isn’t on online and citizens can’t update it.

The Hamburg activists point out that while affordable apartments and workspaces are hard to find in Hamburg, around 1.2 million square meters (12.9 million square feet) of office and industrial space stands empty. They hope that some of these spaces will serve for creative and social uses rather than helping developers serve the needs of private investors.

Berlin is known for its relatively low rents, especially if compared with those in cities like Paris or London. For example, in good (maybe better yet, interesting) districts one bedroom apartments can be found for 400 or 450 Euros per month. But lately all the more apartments are offered at not-so-affordable prices, and this could – should the trend spread – complicate lives of Berlin’s residents, and so a group of people calling themselves Hedonists International came up with a provocative and entertaining way of protesting. They answered ads for apartments for rent in the districts of Kreuzberg and Freidrichshain, from which immigrants moved out because of increased rents and more affluent young couples with children moved in (today’s average rent for two bedroom apartments in those neighborhoods is around 600 Euros) offered at unusually high prices. They would arrange to meet with the real estate agent and would then, just before “seeing” the apartment, strip completely naked and party inside, dancing naked, with Mickey Mouse masks on their faces, to conceal their identities, and messages “Too expensive” or “Stripping” written on their naked bodies. They would have fun and record their naked entertainment for as long as they would not be thrown out, usually only by the police.

Some real estate agencies just wave their hands, believing it is just a transient entertainment, while others are angry and claim that the Berliners are spoiled because rents in the city are minimal. Thus, they quote that the citizens of Munich spend an average of 17.6 per cent earnings on rent, while in Berlin they spend 12.3 per cent earnings on rent. But the demonstrators, as one of them, who wished to remain anonymous, along with everyone else in the group, said, claim that in Berlin still more flats is on offer than there is demand so there is no justification for raising rents. With this way of protesting they wanted to draw attention to their demands and warn landlords that they can expect their visit if they try to rent apartments at inflated prices. The nudity is also metaphorical because it implies that after renting such an expensive place, tenants will not have any money left to buy clothes. In any case, they managed to attract the attention of the Social Democrat Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit, famous for his statement that Berlin “poor but sexy”, whose office recently launched an initiative to protect rents in more gentrified neighborhoods in the city.

Anyway, Hedonists International is an international movement, which is not, as they say, homogeneous nor dogmatic, but operates in different countries – from the peripheries of Sao Paulo and Paris to Berlin’s alternative scene. They define themselves as hedonists, because their actions are carried out in joy and fun (that is why they dance naked in the flats, instead of a protesting “seriously” in front of buildings). Berlin “faction” had already organized series of events, and so they broke in masses into a shopping center at Postdamer Platz before Christmas, dancing and thwarting people who were shopping, protesting against consumerism. They organized an action similar to the one with the apartments in a neo-Nazi pub in Berlin, where they also crashed in naked and had a party rebelling against fascism. They have temporarily suspended actions in apartments due to cold weather, because they require too much time to strip and get dressed again while running from the police.

If you would like to join them, check out their web page and watch a review of their actions in the video:

]]>http://comeandcheck.it/other-stuff/stripping-naked-for-lower-rents/feed/0Nikola Popić: Kosor Househttp://comeandcheck.it/architecture/nikola-popic-kosor-house/
http://comeandcheck.it/architecture/nikola-popic-kosor-house/#commentsMon, 29 Nov 2010 14:00:07 +0000http://pogledaj.to/?p=17858Within the framework of the Annual Exhibition of Realizations by Croatian Architects in 2010, which is set to take place at the end of the week in Split, the Croatian Architects’ Association (CAA) will confer their awards for the most successful Croatian architects’ realizations in 2010 both in Croatia and abroad.

The nominated realizations contending for the ‘Bernardo Bernardi’, ‘Drago Galić’ and ‘Viktor Kovačić’ Awards, respectively, were featured here, while all nominated projects will be presented within the next couple of weeks.

Today we present the “Kosor House” in Bol on the Island of Brač, whose author is Nikola Popić,along with Đurđa Vujnović and Nikša Mrkonjić.

For more details on the project read further:

In Bol on the Island of Brač, on a small lot in the Benačica area, where houses are already sprouting up like mushrooms, in both adequate and inadequate bulk, a small house was set to be developed as a summer residence, with equally important interior and exterior premises. The plan was to activate the entire lot as a single house, leave a parking spot in the northern part of the lot, and fencing in the remaining part of the lot with ground-level stone walls, within which a series of interior and exterior premises can be placed thus providing a pleasant stay for the majority of the year.

The stone wall is built from a highly specific and very rare type of bol stone “the obala” which can’t be obtained from the rock quarry but is found during diggings. Fenced-in walls in Bol have always been built from these indigenous Bol rocks. A compact floor cubicle leans on the set walls, thus throwing a soothing shadow over the ground floor while still allowing the sun to occasionally break through.

The region’s specific lighting is displayed throughout the house by way of specially arranged embedded elements.

The ground floor living room is tied to three courtyards which are extended to the lot’s fence lines. An entrance in the east, a west-intimate and a south one with a line of trees spilling over into the western part, linked with a pergola, crossing over into the east courtyard. The upper floor with bedrooms and a sea view is consoled left towards the south so as to shield the closed-off part of the living room from the summer sun.

]]>http://comeandcheck.it/architecture/nikola-popic-kosor-house/feed/0A House That Spurs Grist to Its Own Millhttp://comeandcheck.it/architecture/a-house-that-spurs-grist-to-its-own-mill/
http://comeandcheck.it/architecture/a-house-that-spurs-grist-to-its-own-mill/#commentsThu, 25 Nov 2010 10:20:42 +0000http://pogledaj.to/?p=17555

The arcadian setting on the Norfolk Broads is the place where the currently best UK house as acclaimed by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is situated at. It’s an interpolation of the old and run-down Hunsett Mill updated with a new extension so as to provide the owners and families who come for a retreat here a maximally pleasant living space. Acme Architects was presented with quite the challenge upon reconstructing and interpolating the Grade 2 listed 19th century mill. The development of the requested extension virtually tripled the size of the original house, however, the architects faithfully followed the mill’s original shape which RIBA’s judges described as ‘more akin to a piece of art than a piece of rural, domestic architecture.

The RIBA cited that as opposed to creating either an imitation of the Victorian red-brick cottage, or a self-effacing glass box, Acme Architects sought to create a kind of triple-shadow of the original, in black charred timber, crossed by the shadow of the neighboring windmill’s arms.
The new building is clad in black charred timber so that it’s truly a shadow with flush glazing that add to the sense of insubstantiality. At the same time, large glass windows break the facade’s monotony while leaving a sense of non-materialness.
The roof is designed as a series of linked gables that are asymmetric yet rhythmic. Further changes of angle are added to create a series of interesting spaces, with the first floor walkway to the bedrooms particularly specific. The entirety is consistently detailed and well-crafted with interesting off-site construction utilization.

A few days ago, precisely on November 1st, our friends from Actar, together with Storefront and Architizer, released the first in a series of Total Housing tenders, whose goal is to create more contemporary housing typologies that go above and beyond the standardized and canonical models of today’s usual housing solutions.

The first tender is simply entitled Apartments and is about the most basic housing unit, the apartment.

As the organizers point out, in a contemporary city, bombarded with new technologies and socio-economical changes, traditional models of the urban way of living have become rudimental. Thus architects and designers have the obvious task of pushing boundaries, acting as bearers of new ideas in view of creating physical spaces of the future which has already arrived, providing a literal answer to such newly-formed conditions and contexts.

They hold that this tender is precisely the opportunity for discovering such concepts. Total Housing; Apartments requests residential projects from its contestants, projects that will reconcile and entwine the discrepancies between archaic ideas of perception and space in today’s households with the realistic and contemporary way of life. Smart and up-to-date program divisions, implementation of technological achievements and application of the most contemporary material, alongside radical conceptual suggestions are but a few of several segments for which the organizers believe will be the contestants’ features and answers to the task at hand. Categories in which contestants can submit their works are divided according to the number of sleeping units in the project, single, double, triple, triple + bed rooms, respectively, along with a fifth category which counts more than the aforementioned.

Participation in the competition is free of charge. For further details on other conditions, judges and deadlines, please click here.

]]>http://comeandcheck.it/architecture/totally-contemporary-and-different-housing/feed/0Quality Viewed as Excessive in Croatian Architecturehttp://comeandcheck.it/architecture/quality-viewed-as-excessive-in-croatian-architecture/
http://comeandcheck.it/architecture/quality-viewed-as-excessive-in-croatian-architecture/#commentsFri, 09 Jul 2010 12:00:17 +0000http://pogledaj.to/?p=14796The esteemed Croatian architect Hrvoje Njirić opened SplitTalks as the first lecturer in the Cellars of Diocletian’s Palace. Njirić has ties to Split dating back from 2007 when he was tenured at the University of Split Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture and several projects tie him to this city. He won first prize for the new maternity clinic project, which wasn’t carried out due to a debatable decision of the authorities. He’s also the tender winner for designing the Faculty of Law building within the new University Campus.

njiric + arhitektiis his Zagreb office while the housing projects in Gračani and Markuševac along with the MB pre-school in Retkovac are among his current, significant and realized projects. However, he refrained from talking about his work at his SplitTalks lecture, instead focusing on a more general view of architecture, education and contemplation of architecture as a cultural category.

You held quite a dynamic lecture in Split, almost every sentence was accompanied by something visual – from numerous pop-culture references to trivialities from the media and everyday life. How come you decided on such a populist concept where architecture topics can be conveyed to even the most general of audiences?

– It’s simply a reflection of my viewpoint that it’s appropriate to fight the abyss of elitism, hermetism and autism, along with formalist egotism in which domestic and international architecture is progressively falling into. I’m turned toward man as an individual, however banal that might sound, and I’d appreciate architecture as a predominantly social category being brought closer to as many people as possible, without unnecessary mystification or glorification. Thus, as a result of that train of thought, the lecture conveyed my desire that both the language of architecture along with designers’ intentions be made understandable to the users of those services – regardless whether it’s in relation to public or private space. That is an integral part of my educational work at the Split FCEA where I attempt to raise awareness among students in regard to images around them, in lieu of those from dazzling pages of foreign magazines or the overload of junk found on various architectural sites. That’s what future architects need – and with that, the Split lecture closed – to be what they are, to be what is appropriate, and not that which they will never be able to become. We can’t compete in categories we don’t belong to. Just as it’s inopportune to compete against the Brazilians in dribbling, thus it’s unwise to imitate Foster within the Croatian reality, even when designing an airport. Recognizing and inching nearer towards the everyday stuff is the only suitable modus operandi.

In Split you also paid homage to “Split’s disheveled beauty”, emphasizing that one could learn from it, all the while mentioning the tenants’ additional interventions – such as remodeling, closing off balconies, reconstruction – which we usually consider a lack of culture in utilizing architecturally defined space. Do you thereby provide users with a legitimate reason to do what they will with a given space, a so-called legitimate disarray in itself, or does that also belong to an overall acceptance of our realistic circumstances?

– Architects are unfavorably disposed toward the notion of their houses being “adapted”, but we’re conscious we live in a culture where there’s a slim chance that something along those lines won’t happen. Hence it’s always wise to anticipate such situations and “install” them into a project. Of course, public facilities shouldn’t have to change if there is no real need for them to change, but as far as residences are concerned, some changes and adaptations are a part of the personalization of the living quarters. Renowned world architects and theorists have pointed toward that fact. Herman Hertzberger, Mario Botta and Kenneth Frampton have in more than one instance shown enthusiasm toward the vitality of the Split structure, the possibility of the town to accept life and all its finesse along with the adaptations that time and progress inevitably bring with them.

How do you anticipate possible future tenants’ needs in your residential buildings, thus decreasing the need for subsequent interventions?

– First of all, I ask myself what the frameworks for an optimal existence are within the given location. During development in peri-urban parts of town such as Gračani and Markuševac, for example, we asked ourselves who the potential tenants would be, what lifestyles would be suitable to that environment and how to provide them with adequate living conditions. We thus strive to recognize what would be important to such a lifestyle. Concretely speaking, in Markuševac we were led by a so-called cottage-themed lifestyle, which includes barbeques, parties, an outdoor lifestyle. However, we couldn’t find esthetically acceptable barbeques so, in collaboration with a company from the Croatian Zagorje region, we designed a prototype of an outer barbeque furnace, with which we intended to furnish all apartments with, that is, all terraces and gardens. Unfortunately, the investor gave up on that idea; despite the cost not being too high. Listed under njiric+, the barbecue can be found in the company’s commercial offer to this day. However, that is but one detail. We took privacy into account, because in such a location, a house with a common staircase and all such urban aspects (and concessions) of buildings within a compact city area is absurd. That’s the main reason we advocate an individual existence within a group concept. Thus, every apartment has its own entrance and outer area, which is protected from the neighbors’ view. Naturally, individual needs take getting used to, but it’s a fact that both developments haven’t undergone larger changes in these three, four years of use. That suggests that a sufficient level of freedom and possibility has been “built into” these projects. It is interesting to note that in both cases it’s a case of foreign investors. It’s a tossup whether it would be possible to achieve the same experience with a domestic partner. We’re currently trying with a Croatian commissioner in Samobor and the outcome is yet to be determined.

In your opinion, how would working with a Croatian investor differ from working with foreign ones?

– I hold that home financiers are more liable to rely on patterns they see within their surroundings, and those are quite modest. They know very well what sells and have no motive for shifting standards. Foreigners more often have a much needed broader perspective, which most probably stems from their upbringing and education, they accept new solutions more readily and are more prone to compromising. From my past experiences with domestic investors in the housing development field, one notices how unyielding and inflexible they are, led on solely by a supply and demand logic, while a parcel (address) is the one actually selling apartments at a higher or lower rate. In such circumstances quality happens as an excess, a coincidence. Architects aren’t to blame for everything, rather the entire environment is collectively accountable, including media outlets such as the daily “Jutarnji List”, which promote luxury lifestyles from far-away countries and who knows what sources that have absolutely no relation to us whatsoever. Loading papers with colorful images of jumbled interiors and then attributing them with features such as “futuristic”, “minimalistic” is a bit much even for Croatia. Moreover, what can we expect tomorrow, from children who had art classes in school a mere one hour per week, along with art class kits having been revoked…

*Rural Mat, Markuševac, Zagreb

You’re highly critical of architecture designed in Croatia. To what extent is that critical standpoint in relation to your statement about being irritated by the overflow of mere form and superficial approaches to architecture?

– My favorite definition of today’s architecture in Croatia is as follows: a more or less meaningful accumulation of construction material. On the one hand it’s a consequence of ruthless market conditions, and on the other of indolence, the real cause lying beneath the surface. Work is being done in a cookie-cutter fashion, superficially, fast and safe, without any desire for delving under the surface or experimenting, let alone taking risks. Thus production is set up on an impermissible level. Just half of what is built means something, or, in other words, there’s but a handful of offices which try and contemplate that which they’re working on. Everything else is just mere “construction”. I, along with everyone else, have also been hit by the recession, but that’s no excuse to not tackle work fair and square. In such instances, maybe it’s better to not even bother taking on new work. Insisting on form is only an attempt to mask all other disinterests with a slick outer appearance, but even that is more often than not carried out unskillfully in Croatia.

*…this familiar feeling, Gračani, Zagreb

In the “Superdalmatia” hotel project in Čiovo you reinterpret features which we could call Dalmatian, or, actually, all-Croatian – improvisations, changeability – and you proceed to conceptualize that into a new quality.

– Hence the name “Superdalmatia”, which holds all those characteristics – ad hoc changes, incompetencies, irresponsibilities, improvisations, unexpected turns, adaptations, etc. The project is the result of a desire to reassess the ways of temporary residence – and come to at least some indication of certain new, more suitable models, as not much has changed in the development of hotel typology in the past hundred years. As is the case with every quest, ours being no exception, mistakes are a part of the process, but we went into this project with full awareness.

What is experimental in“Superdalmatia”, what deviates from the classic Croatian model?

– A lot of things – from the typology to the interpretation of the common and individual space theme. We didn’t pay homage to the standardized patterns but suggested a central cube with public programmes, which are arranged one over the other at the same time serving as a communication zone. That means that there are no classic hallways, which makes a hotel more efficient, and the square meters that aren’t wasted on hallways can be added to rooms or to the common areas. We also organize rooms differently. For the sake of reducing energy related costs, rather than with air-conditioning or sun prevention, we take care of excessive insulation by positioning the sanitary zone toward the outside, which is an unexpected albeit highly efficient solution.

*Superdalmatia, Čiovo

“Superdalmatia” stemmed from the belief that tourism is a two-way cultural process, and not an “all-inclusive” autistic development, right?

– We view tourism as an interactive process between the local population and guests, and certainly not as a closed hotel-type autistic form, such is the Méditerranée club, which treats people as merchandise – they arrive at the hotel straight from the airport, proceed from hotel to beach and back, and thus back and forth for some fifteen days, while any and all location-based authenticity is clinically removed. Sterility at the wrong place – that aspect of tourism isn’t suitable for Croatia. A small nucleus to that inclusively juxtaposed connection to tourism is the suggestion of incorporating a small chapel within the hotel, inspired by 15th century Dubrovnik summer houses, where sacral facilities existed within the primal structure. In addition to the landed aristocracy, the local residents were a, so allowed to visit these chapels. That is one of the earliest examples of hybridity, a mixing of the public and private spheres. In the case of “Superdalmatia” that religious platform could be utilized for a certain kind of interactivity, if only to express an aspect of sympathy between the local and foreign senior citizens. However, I’m not so sure that that idea will take hold as the investor is quite fidgety.

I’d venture to say that tolerance imposed itself as the central topic of your lecture. How does tolerance translate into the language of architecture?

– Generally speaking, that’s a fairly difficult topic in Croatia. We as a nation glide among extremes – we’re either too tolerant or not at all. A prerequisite in view of tolerance toward people we co-exist with as well as the culture and space we use would be to balance out tendencies at the individual habitus level. It is hard to define it from a sociological point of view, let alone render it into spatial forms, but one must try and try again. Bearing in mind that Split is a multicultural environment with a series of social frictions, which are visible and thus more easily recognized and subsequently interpreted, we gave students tolerance as a design theme for the next semester. It has two faces; that which is real even when we’re trying to break through the core of that phenomenon and a declarative side, almost political, which is concentrated on the set of minimal rules or behavioral modes so as to satisfy the general form and a seeming ideal that we live in a tolerant environment. There’s a big difference between the real and declarative level of tolerance and I’m interested to see how students will respond. There’s a whole scale of possible instances to which tolerance relates to – ethnic, religious, sports, economic, etc. – and in line with that a whole series of differences and antagonisms in our society which we should attempt to reconcile. If we go back to the topic of residence, that could be an attempt at coexistence of a wealthy, young entrepreneur, the student population and let’s say a family on the social minimum, trying to live within the same house. Different categories of residents could result in an interesting environment, which would, at the very least, serve as an adequate existential framework for children who would be raised in such an atmosphere.

Isn’t that type of “reconciliation” between different resident categories built into your residential-tourist project you designed in Portugal?

– Indeed it is, and it’s interesting to note that we aren’t the only ones who produced such a situation, but the investor – the Granturismo Foundation – set it as a theme. It looks as if there is someone who’s prone to challenges after all. We were supposed to situate three categories of users under a common roof: the middle-class local population, young yuppies from Lisbon and senior citizens from Western Europe and make their cohabitation as acceptable and tolerant as possible…

*Non-stop house, Granturismo, Silves, Portugal

What kind of common ground for coexistence have you found for these generationally, socially and even culturally varied groups?

– On the one hand, we made autonomy possible, which is a must, while at the same time giving indications for a string of potential small social interactions. Depending on their lifestyle, the residential space is adapted to every group, and everything else is of a semi-public character and is used jointly. For example, the stairways are centrally positioned and aren’t used for just mere coming to the apartment, but are intended as gathering, sitting or partying areas. The green zone is at the same time a filter between various modes of living, the pool is also a common zone, and not only for those who can afford it.

Gibonni, Zlatko Gall, Ante Tomić as well as Damir Rako, the only architect among the jurors, will be the ones evaluating the students’ tolerance house. What is the reasoning behind deeming a musician, a music critic and a writer competent to evaluate architectural work? Would you be resistant to the idea of your architectural competition comprising of such a jury?

– Architects are always exposed to evaluation judgements from people who are neither competent nor particularly interested, formal education notwithstanding. Our job is to create a certain metalanguage by which we will convey that what we do to our future users, superficial evaluators and ad hoc critics. Clearness or competency of judgement is a somewhat suspect category and it’s a must that students be exposed to various “unclean” i.e. life situations and be capable of communicating ideas quickly and clearly. And this jury has, at the very least, the same common denominator in being from Split, having their own lenses through which they view the city, are in a more or less opposed to the governing oligarchy and all of them are trying, each by way of their own work, to say something tolerance related. In addition, such a group makes for a broader range of vision, the same vision I’m dedicated to.

For more information on Hrvoje Njirić’s work and his office, click on his regularly updated web page www.njiric.com